


saints go marching in

by AerisaHale (KarasuKyra)



Category: Shannara Series - Terry Brooks, The Shannara Chronicles (TV)
Genre: 1x03, F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-11
Updated: 2016-01-11
Packaged: 2018-05-13 03:49:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 388
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5693452
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KarasuKyra/pseuds/AerisaHale
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Eretria lays awake at night, thinking about princesses and a better life.</p><p>Set the night before Eretria tries to leave her father in 1x03.</p>
            </blockquote>





	saints go marching in

The cool metal of the bracelet feels like it's burning against her skin. Eretria stares at it from where she lays on her cot, arm held suspended above her. The crest of the royal Elven family stands out against the flickering, dying light of the main fire outside, seeping through the cracks of the tent. The bracelet is beautiful and pale—and probably worth a fortune.

She snorts at herself, unbuckling the bracelet and throwing it across the room, onto the table across the tent, and rolls over. She tucks her knees up to her chest and closes her eyes. Against her will, she finds them opening again as she wonders about her freedom. All she'd managed to do was prove to her father that, once again, his wishes for a son were not ill-founded. Instead he got a pretty, stupid little girl. Her only worth is in her marriageability.

The first night she saw the Princess, pressed against that tree, her pale skin glowing a soft orange in the night, she thought for a moment what her life would have been like, had she been born into a different life. Then, with a knife pressed to her throat by a complete stranger, she realized she felt safer than when she did walking among her own people, who would slaughter you like a pig for sneezing.

Eretria has to believe that there is still good inside her. Everything she has done was to survive, one step closer to a better life. In the dark, solitude of the night, she allows herself to imagine that for just one moment, that she marries the Elven Princess, finds love and happiness that erases the fear and anger from her soul.

A pained cry followed by malicious laughter has her clutching the knife under her pillow a little bit tighter. Her happy thoughts of a better life are quickly replaced with bitter memories of abuse at the hands of her 'family'. She is in no position to be entertaining what-if's. Her life has no allowance for fantasies. However, she can’t stop her eyes from drifting over to the table and staring at the half of the bracelet she could see, imagining herself wearing a wedding cuff engraved with the seal of the House of Elessedil, and lets it chase her into sleep.


End file.
